What I want to see is the SCOTUS affirm the right of states to regulate *intrastate* commerce in firearms. That is, since FDR the courts have expanded the Interstate Commerce Clause to include *intrastate* commerce, and this needs to end.

Clarence Thomas laid the groundwork for this by reaffirming the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, in McDonald v. Chicago, which asserts that if a state oppresses the civil rights of its citizens, the federal government can intervene to stop the state from doing that.

That is, he did one side of the equation, that states cannot oppress their citizens 2nd Amendment rights. But now, the SCOTUS needs to establish the flip side to this argument, that if guns and ammunition are produced in a state, *not* for export to other states, it should be free of federal regulation.

And if the SCOTUS does this, the ramifications are gigantic, because the vast amount of power the feds inflict on the states and the people is on *intrastate* commerce. If they can no longer do this, a lot of what the federal government is doing right now goes right out the window.

Here's the first half of the first sentence in the SCOTUS syllabus cite I provided above: "District of Columbia law bans handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; provides separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun," They can try to square the circle any way they want, but they lost. We hates them my Precious--stupid, fat liberalses.

The argument is to create gun and ammunition manufacturers that are out of federal jurisdiction from start to finish, so are immune to the Interstate Commerce Clause. Instead they are regulated by state laws only.

In effect, this also means that they are immune from any federal gun control law, as there is no entry point for federal authority.

This is a major step to revitalize the idea that there is federal jurisdiction, and there is state jurisdiction, and the feds have no authority in state jurisdiction, unlike the huge number of federal redundant laws that exist today, that allows the feds to inject themselves into state authorities.

FDR used the Interstate Commerce Clause to get the feds involved with government at all levels in the US. Then LBJ used the General Welfare Clause to create the welfare state. If the SCOTUS can knock these two abuses down, then much of the federal government has no constitutional authority to exist.

Currently there are at least 115 major gun manufacturers in the US, and 31 major ammunition manufacturers.

Many of the smaller gun and ammo manufacturers make custom, specialty and reproduction guns and less popular cartridge sizes and loads. So the idea of production in and for a single state is not unreasonable nor unprofitable.

Gun production can currently be very small scale, because parts and supplies can be procured across state lines. If a manufacturer wanted to set up in just a single state, they would have to insure the entire vertical production process was in state as well.

They would likely make higher valued and decorative guns with custom engraving to clearly indicate the state it was produced in. Many would be sold as gifts or awards, so form is just as important as function.

Likewise, they would have to make it a point that neither the gun or ammo could leave the state, maybe offering a “buy back” scheme in case the owner moved, or otherwise needed to resell the gun or pass it down in inheritance.

Probably the biggest buyers of standard, non-decorative guns would be police departments in the state, as part of the tax abatement and other incentives offered to manufacturers to set up in the state. This would especially be attractive to ammo manufacturers, as police go through a lot of training ammo.

-- What I want to see is the SCOTUS affirm the right of states to regulate *intrastate* commerce in firearms. --

That decision has already been made, and opposite the direction you suggest. US v. Stewart. The feds have supremacy in that regard too, via application of the Raich (pot) precedent to firearms. SCOTUS ordered the ninth circuit to uphold the conviction of a man who had a federally prohibited weapon, where the weapon never left his house, nevermind leaving the state.

Pigs will fly before the SCOTUS again rules in favor of the RKBA, as it did in the Miller and Presser cases.

Not too long ago, I would have agreed with you, but Chief Justice Roberts Obamacare decision has changed the entire game.

“In 2005, Sen. Barack Obama spoke in opposition to Roberts’ nomination, saying he did not trust his political philosophy on tough questions such as “whether the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce.” Today, Roberts did what Obama predicted he would do.

(The Roberts opinion stated) “Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. Congress already possesses expansive power to regulate what people do. Upholding the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause would give Congress the same license to regulate what people do not do. The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited and enumerated powers. The individual mandate thus cannot be sustained under Congresss power to “regulate Commerce.”

Importantly, “This is the brightest line in the sand ever drawn on the question of where the interstate commerce power ends... This standard, meanwhile is very likely to get more rigorous as time goes on.”

“One of the signature judicial “achievements” of the Left has been the erosion of individual liberty using Congress power to regulate interstate commerce. This disturbing trend arguably reached its peak in Wickard v. Filburn, a case that said that Congress could regulate everything including how much wheat a farmer fed his hogs because that could have a plausible impact on interstate commerce. In the face of this, liberals rushed to pass every conceivable form of regulation, no matter how nitpicky or micromanaging it was, because if that was allowed, everything was. Successive courts nibbled around the edges in cases like United States vs. Morrison, but ultimately left this expansive reading untouched.”

But with the Roberts Obamacare decision, the door has been opened to the serious erosion of Wickard.

Importantly, this point was not missed by some of those on the left, as the *next* most valuable constitutional misinterpretation they have created, after the Interstate Commerce Clause, was the General Welfare Clause, the tool used by LBJ to create his Great Society welfare state.

Nancy Pelosi actually blurted this out as a separate and alternate justification for Obamacare, out of fear that the Interstate Commerce Clause abuses have been effectively crippled.

The bottom line is that, while right now, states are not able to stop intrusive federal efforts against gun rights, they are looking forward to challenging the authority of the federal government on a whole host of micromanagement issues. And with the Roberts decision, they may start to win these arguments, at the expense of federal power.

No one will set up factories to make something that will be sold only within a single state. Definitely one of the stupidiest ideas I’ve heard here at Free Republic and I have been here a while. LOL Good luck!

Well, sorry you think so, but several states disagree with you. I suppose you think they are just being stupid, with their stupid ideas.

“Originally introduced and passed in Montana, the FFA declares that any firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states.

“Following initial Montana enactment, clones of the Firearms Freedom Act have subsequently been enacted in Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota, and other clones have been introduced in the legislatures of twenty-some other states.

“The FFA is primarily a Tenth Amendment challenge to the powers of Congress under the commerce clause, with firearms as the object  it is a states rights exercise.”

“Plaintiffs filed suit in support of the law, in federal district court, on October 1, 2009. These plaintiffs are the Montana Shooting Sports Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, and MSSA president Gary Marbut. The legal complaint states that Marbut “wishes to manufacture and sell small arms and small arms ammunition to customers exclusively in Montana, pursuant to the MFFA, without complying with the NFA or the GCA, or other applicable federal laws.”

“On September 29, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy dismissed the suit “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.”

“The Plaintiffs have filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Oral arguments in MSSA v. Holder are scheduled to be heard by the Ninth Circuit on March 4, 2013, in Portland, Oregon.”

There are already gun manufacturers in a large number of states. It would take nothing for them to make a limited run of “state” models for sale only in that state.

There is also the possibility of home manufacture, 3D printing, 80% receivers, all of which could manufacture the “firearm” within a state. Barrels, magazines, triggers, sights, stocks, all are not “guns” under federal regulation at present.

22
posted on 02/02/2013 10:08:28 AM PST
by marktwain
(The MSM must die for the Republic to live. Long live the new media!)

They cannot legally do that right now, though Marbut intends a production run of Buckaroo .22 caliber bolt action rifles whose design is public domain, so cannot be messed with by the feds using its patent as an excuse.

His lawyers have forbidden him to even assemble a single rifle until the case is settled.

Well, he is one manufacturer who *wants* to do this, but no others can say so, without being threatened by the BATF&E.

So you can right now claim that no manufacturer would ever do so, but there is no way of proving that claim. However, lots of states are trying to make it easy for entrepreneurs to do so, so I am not inclined to agree with your opinion.

Better stay away from obamas courts. It will end up like obamacare did.

I doubt that. Roberts agreed with the Heller and McDonald decisions. Arguing for minimal magazine capacity means poor people need more than one firearm ready for self defense when they don't have time to change magazines. Heller tossed safe storage laws too.

Somewhat the way O'care was passed. I'm sure FineSwine, Little Dicky Durbin and UpChuck are planning something similar for the federal version.

I don't think so. The rats had the House then. Now any member of the GOP voting for gun control in the House would most likey get primaried from the right. It won't pass the House. Why would Reid expose his rats in the Senate to a vote that would make them vulnerable in the general election for a ban on common magazines and semiautos that probably couldn't pass scrutiny in the current SCOTUS? I'm not so sure about expanding NICS checks to private sales.

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